Blue Ball Machine
The Blue Ball Machine is a series of animations featuring tiny blue balls being passed around a variety of devices and situations.
The Blue Ball Machine originated on the Something Awful Forums near the end of 2004, and was popularized by the website YTMND. It became a YTMND fad and inspired numerous imitations and parodies.
How it works
The Blue Ball Machine consists of tiles, animated GIF files of 100 pixels by 100 pixels, each containing 30 frames at .08 seconds per frame. During every cycle 3 balls enter the tile through three points which are the same on every tile (except those made to only be usable on the edges). The ball follows a path through the animation in the individual tile and leaves at one of three preset points, which is exactly opposite one of the incoming points. By animating multiple balls moving along the same path, one can delay the exit of a ball so that the balls exiting in a cycle need not be the ones that entered in that cycle.
By following the same simple set of rules, multiple people are able to create pieces of a larger animation which fit together seamlessly. Over the years, dozens of people have contributed.
The individual animations are simple, but when they are placed next to one another, they become pieces of a much more complex machine. They have been placed together in a single animated GIF, and also various Something Awful forums members have created what are sometimes called "randomizers", scripts, and programs which place the pieces next to one another randomly. These have included Javascript and Java programs, Shockwave Flash files, and screen savers.
History
The first Blue Ball Machine idea was created by Something Awful forums member Andorion in a thread posted on October 15, 2004, with instructions on how to create the tiles. That thread resulted in 38 tiles with no unifying theme. It was well-received, but didn't circulate much outside of Something Awful.
The second Blue Ball thread was posted on October 15, 2005. The instructions remained the same, to maintain compatibility with the earlier tiles, except for the addition of two rules: 1. The balls must not be destroyed or otherwise obscured, so that one could visually follow each ball all the way through every tile. 2. There would be a unifying visual theme, that of a factory or research facility.
It was this thread that saw the introduction of the lab-coated scientist character.
While the second thread was active, Andorion created large animated GIFs compiling every tile that had been made up to that point in that thread. One of these GIFs from relatively early in the thread was posted on the website YTMND, accompanied by a loop of Danny Elfman's "Breakfast Machine" from the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure. This GIF contained 30 of the eventual 56 tiles created in 2005. It was this version that gained widespread attention, being posted in numerous blogs, eventually racking up over 4 million views on YTMND. The Blue Ball Machine has received media attention, mostly through YTMND, in various magazines and newspapers including Wired and The Wall Street Journal.[1][citation needed]
A third Blue Ball thread was posted on November 1, 2006, by Something Awful forums user Akumu. The rules are unchanged from 2005. Due to the attention the Blue Ball Machine got in 2005, many more people participated, with over 40 tiles completed in the first two weeks, compared to 56 in three months in 2005 and January 2006.
References
- ^ Lee, James (2006). "1 Web Site, 250,000 Idiotic Clips. LOL!". Retrieved 2007-04-22.
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External links
- [ Wired article on YTMND, mentioning Blue Ball Machine]